What's Really Important

Making you more successful in your business is what we’re about, from covering the latest products to helping you prepare for tax season to profiling successful projects, and all of those items appear on the following pages.

But sometimes its worth taking a step back to look at everything else in your life. Maybe it’s the impending holidays — a week before Thanksgiving when I’m writing this; probably close to Christmas when you’re reading it — but it seems like a good time to think about balance and what’s important. A lot of us put off our personal life or time with our family to further our professional career or build our business. We say things like, “There’s time for that later,” but the reality is you never know what life is going to bring.

A few years ago, I met a remodeler who had a booming business. We’ll call him Brad. Brad had started a window company at 24 and at this time, just short of 30, had built it into a $6 million a year business. Almost overnight, he had become very successful. And he did it by working 80- to 100-hour weeks and thinking about nothing but the business. He told me he wanted to have a family someday, but figured he was only 29 and there would be plenty of time for that later.

That comment didn’t really seem important at the time — like I said, it’s one of those things we all say — but I remembered it about two months later when one of my colleagues told me Brad had been in a serious accident. While driving down a rain-slicked road, he lost control of his vehicle and suffered a severe leg injury. In fact, he lost the leg and told me later that the doctors told him that the only reason he survived the accident was because of a quick-thinking motorist that applied a tourniquet to his leg to control the bleeding.

For Brad, the accident was a wake-up call that he needed balance in his life — that he could be a successful businessman and still find time for a life. He’s since gotten married and started a family and seems much more happy and fulfilled.